Leo Varadkar is set to be elected the new leader of Fine Gael - despite a majority of the party's ordinary members appearing to vote against him.

This indicates that his challenge hasn't been universally successful.

The votes of TDs and Senators will be the last ones to be counted, of those Varadkar should have a comfortable lead to get him over the line at the final count.

The first results from grassroots voters show him losing by around two-to-one, versus his rival Simon Coveney.

21 boxes in out of 26: Simon Coveney lead is 62 to 38.
If trend continues, he would need Varadkar's 46 supporters to be whittled down to 39.

— Gavan Reilly (@gavreilly) June 2, 2017

But the grassroots members of Fine Gael only carry around a quarter of the final vote while the votes of TDs are roughly 400 times more valuable.

Simon Coveney has done about as well as he could with the grassroots members - tallies are still underway but he's leading by about 2-to-1. He could end up with 70 per cent of their support.

And earlier he said he wasn't ruling out changing the minds of TDs either.

But it is still a mountain to climb. He can only be sure of the support of 20 colleagues in Leinster House - he'll need at least 32 to pull off an extraordinary upset.

The result is expected at around 6pm when the new leader of the Fine Gael party will be announced.

Deputy Alan Farrell is supporting Leo Varadkar: